MariaCoronel_egame

María D. Coronel mcoronel@mail.sdsu.edu
 * || =Facebook Tutorial=

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Overview Instructional Objective Learners Context of Use Motivational Issues Design Process References || ||

Overview
//Briefly describe the type of game or simulation, the software it will be teaching, and which features your users need to know. What makes this motivational and fun? This section should be interesting and pithy.//

I will use Captivate to present a demonstration on the use of Facebook, specifically, on working with the Notes tab of their site. In addition, users will be assessed on their retained knowledge of steps reviewed.

I use Facebook as a site for students to store and to present activities performing oral skills.

What will make this tutorial motivational is that students are receiving demonstrations on how to use a section of Facebook along with a practicing session to evaluate their understanding on tools presented. Other motivational factor, is that becoming familiar with some of the tools available in Facebook they will participate in social interactions outside of the school, with people they know, or even as they become acquainted with their classmates.

It is my intention to make the tutorial and assessment fun through the type of activities assigned. They will be working through the posting of their first assignment that will include their personal information. Although they are assigned what information to post, their work is already in Spanish and it is based on the limited vocabulary they have the first week of the course. Also, they will receive feedback in the form of comments from students assigned to their group as they respond to their greeting, say where they are from, and include a leave-taking. And finally, it will be fun because they have an audience that extends out of the teacher, who is also the evaluator, but to their classmates, and to the rest of the world visiting their site.

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Instructional Objective
//What will the learners learn to do by completing this simulation? Be specific. Which software? What features will they be able to use?//

Learners will become proficient in the use of Facebook, specifically in adding Notes to their site. The following steps are required when completing a class assignment in the Notes section:
 * Write a New Note
 * Upload an image
 * Make Note available to users (select the instructor, classmates, friends, etc.)
 * Tag assignment to instructor or others required to view assignment

Specifically, they will receive a demonstration on how to complete the following assignment and they will be assessed on the understanding of the steps modeled: FACEBOOK ASSIGNMENT (20 points) Facebook Assignment Activity: Personal Introduction (picture + text + audio) Post the picture I took from you in class, and in Spanish, write a personal introduction including the information presented below. Then record your greeting using my digital recorder. I will upload your sound file and it will available to you at: http://tegrity.fresnocitycollege.edu/fcc/mc010/spanish/1/yourname.wma Your note should be tagged and available to classmates assigned in your group. Include the following: 
 * greeting
 * your name
 * where you are from
 * say that you are o.k./regular/so, so
 * and say good bye



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Learners
//Who is the game designed for? Describe them in terms of their age, grade level, affinity towards the subject matter, and anything special about them that the reader should know.//

This game is designed for college students, grades 13-14, enrolled in my Spanish level 1 courses. Their ages range from 18 to 60, with the average age of 25. Students will use this site to display work completed in class and out of class as they are performing verbal skills.

Commonly, this group is reluctant to practice their verbal skills. They feel uncomfortable expressing themselves in a new language, and are too critical on themselves as they evaluate their effort of pronouncing words accurately. Also, students prefer to have an opportunity to rehearse their oral practice before they actually make it available to the instructor or their classmates. In addition, this population relies on feedback of their work prior to their actual submission. They want the possibility to redo their work as they see it necessary. And last, they tend to rely on the informal feedback of their classmates to review their own progress.

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Context of Use
//Where would your sim be used? At home? At school? In a training facility? Who are your users and why do they need this training simulation? //

The demonstration and assessment of the use of Facebook is to be used at school. We have a language laboratory where students work individually for at least one hour a week. The activity is to prepare them to complete class assignments that can be completed in class or out of class. Although the purpose of these activities are for an educational purpose, students can work with on the module outside of the campus.

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Motivational Issues
//Describe how the game engages the learner. Make specific reference to the theoretical readings associated with this course.//

In deciding to use a Facebook assignment for this tutorial and assessment is that I am referring to the subcategories of motivational strategies that stimulate each motivational condition: Attention, Relevance Confidence and Satisfaction (Keller & Suzuki, 1988).

__Attention__. Students like to use media that is popular and used by peers for social interaction. In addition, they like to use this media because is not limited to text, but it includes the options of sharing video and audio files as well.

__Relevance__ is found in using a tool that is already popular in their social realm. That is what many students already use, and for others, this is an addition to other modes of social interaction through media, such as cell phone, email, Twitter, and My Space, to name a few. In addition, Learning to navigate and post information are skills that they will continue to use out side of class assignments and when class ends.

Currently, students use Facebook and send me notes to check if the information is in the space provided and if I am able to access their information. They lack confidence in their skills, and that is the result of not having a tool to measure their skills and not having a suitable demonstration that will not given them pages of text with instructions, rather, they can achieve __Confidence__ by receiving specific instructions on the use of the tools we need to use in class, plus giving them an alternative mode of receiving their information, a video demonstration that can be reviewed as necessary.

And lastly, __Satisfaction__ is achieved as they complete the demonstration and practice information given with guided instructions that permit them to evaluate their abilities in using the presented functions. Completing the assessment and achieving the accuracy of completing the assignment and not having to write messages to see the availability of their posted assignment, will give them the satisfaction that they know what they are doing.

In the ARCS application to software, Keller and Suzuki provide suggestions on the look and feel of the computer application to contain graphics in the title page to stimulate students' perceptions of the content of the lessons. Secondly, to accentuate the importance of the lesson by providing a statement emphasizing the value of the session. Third, to include a menu page where students have control over their learning process, such as access to the various parts of the tutorial in a nonlinear form. And last, to provide interactive elements throughout the lesson to maintain their interest, like the use of feedback and progressive demonstration of the elements building up to a complete New Note in Facebook.

Taking into consideration the work completed by means, Jonassen and Dwyer (1997), where they suggest embedded relevant enhancing strategies when designing activities for learners, they state in their results that those participants who worked on activities relevant to their lives were intrinsically motivated achieving better results on their performance than did their counterparts. For this reason, using a program that is popular among people their age and with similar interests makes it relevant to their lives and providing a personal introduction activity is relevant at the beginning of the semester, when a sense of community must be developed as they will continue interacting for the rest of the term.

In an article by Malone and Lepper (1987), the authors make reference to their own previous study where they conducted an experiment to measure the impact of motivational appeal, and through the manipulation of these factors, they were examining the ways that variations in intrinsic motivation affect learning. Their results concluded that those who received practice sessions in the form of a game, showed significantly higher learning than those who had the information presented as a drill.

Since students will be working individually when completing the learning session on Writing a New Note in Facebook, I took into consideration the specific topics on individual motivation that affect learning results of the participant. These factors are challenge, curiosity, control, and fantasy. __Challenge__ will be present in my session as the learners understand the stated goal of the lesson, which is to be able to write a new note on their own as they complete the activity on their personal introduction. They will receive feedback on their performance as they work through the session, and as a result, their high self-esteem will encourage them to complete the different steps of the lesson. __Curiosity__ is integrated in my lesson as they begin reviewing and practicing some of the tools available when adding a note, that even those familiar with the program do not use. The levels of complexity will allow all participants to be curious about what tools they will practice on their next step of the lesson. Malone and Lepper echo the voice of Keller and Suzuki when they refer to __control__ as to the power given to the participant to control their learning. Malone and Lepper do make a distinction of the control provided by the outcomes the participants receive from the environment in which they learn, and outcomes that depend on the answer of the participants in that environment. They state that empowering learning environments provide a myriad of options that are dependent on the actions of the participants rather than on the results the environment provides. __Fantasy__, state the authors, is the mental imagery not present, rather, the activity evokes such mental descriptions related to physical or social interactions. They mention the feeling of satisfaction of having fame and fortune that is unavailable to the players in real life. The objective of having simulations or modeling practices should be with the intention of asking them to apply their skills in real world situations in which learners participate in their particular role to fulfill a function as practiced. In my practice session, students will write notes that can be available to the whole world. As they write, it is common that they see a greater audience outside of the classroom. This audience may include people from the other side of the globe, and as they share their personal introduction, upload their picture, and provide their audio file, they may form mental images of people all over this earth having access to their note.

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Design Process
//Describe the process you went through in putting the game together.//

//What were your first thoughts?// I new I wanted to use information I present in my Spanish class since I want this tutorial to be used. I thought about having a tutorial with a combination of Jeopardy and Price is Right to practice numbers. The, I wanted to present activities for verb conjugation. And then, I began thinking how software tutorials are ideal for demonstration of programs used. Since I currently use Facebook for students to display activities practicing their verbal skills, I decided to create a tutorial to help them first see a demonstration of the tools, and then, allow them to practice what they have learned through the assessment tools provided in Captivate.

//How did you enhance your ideas?// Generally speaking, students need demonstrations on how to use all tools from Facebook. In order to complete the project and create a 2-3 minute presentation, I decided to limit the scope to one of the tools students use to post text and pictures, the Notes section. Then, I realized that even when students use video and audio recordings as they complete some activities in class, I can make those available through a link, which can also be added into the Notes section. This way, students have all modes of communication, written, visual and audio modes, in one section of Facebook.

//What ideas did you consider and reject (and why?).// I selected one grammatical structure that students struggle to understand which I review constantly to help them understand the concepts, this is verb conjugations. I have 12 sections in Spanish 1 that cover verb conjugations, but it is the conjugation with the verb //ser// that is the most difficult for them for three reasons, first, because each conjugation of the verb is a different word in Spanish (soy, eres, es, somos, son), as compared to English that has three (am-are-is), secondly, because they use the personal pronouns to address people directly and by talking about them (yo tú él ella usted nosotros nostras ellos ellas ustedes), and they are introduced to a formal address for people who are older and hold positions of power (usted-Ud.). And finally, because we have two translations of the verb //to be// in Spanish (//ser// and //estar//) and we review four of the uses of the verb being studied.

Then, I moved to the idea of creating a tutorial in Facebook. My students use the site currently and students form upcoming classes, although they may vary in levels of skill, Spanish for beginners, advanced, or native speakers, all of them will have assigned activities in this site. I began deciding how to create the tutorials for each part of the functions of Facebook. My intention was to immediately begin working on all sections of the site. This was also rejected since I have a limited time to create the tutorial and I can create only one of them and continue with the rest as I continue working after the term ends.

//How did you gather background information?// I began gathering information about tutorials available to avoid replicating my product. I started by visiting the [|Facebook] site. I found a series of topics on available tools and functions where instructions were only provided in written form. I was looking for video tutorials but I there were none. I then move outside of their site and searched specifically for video tutorials. I found [|eHow,] which presents several demonstrations of Facebook, but since I want to offer something unique, I focused on interactive activities but no interactivity functions were available. I had limited my search to Facebook tutorials and I know that in some universities they have other programs to display student work, which assimilates my use of Facebook as a site to present work completed. I found one college, La Guardia Community College, in New York City.



They provide their tutorials in three different applications, Word, Acrobat, and Flash. The tutorial in Flash takes the learner through the steps of adding assignments to their [|ePortfolio in Blackboard]. In their demonstration they only include the visual element of presenting information but they do not have audio or a practice guided session.

//What did you do to get feedback on the idea?// During the developmental stage I met online with professor Bernie Dodge to discuss the possibility of using any one of the two activities I had proposed, a tutorial to review verb conjugations, or using Facebook. He immediately discarded the activities with verb conjugations since Captivate serves as a tool to demonstrate steps in which to complete an activity or to demonstrate navigation.

I am part of the Technology Advisory Committee in my institution. There, Daniel Owens, a technology instructor, mentioned an upcoming academic program in game design. He referred to the electronic aspect of the design through programming language. His sabbatical leave was just last year and he focused his research on the topic. His intentions were to research the evolution of electronic games for the purpose of educational achievement. Based on his results, he wrote an educational program that includes six courses required for the completion of the program. He mentioned that he did not come across any Facebook tutorials that were interactive, mainly, he said, written and video presentations were available. This conversation gave me the assurance that I had something unique to offer, the designing of a tutorial that is interactive, that provides verbal instructions or comments, and which presents immediate feedback to the user.

//How did you flesh out the game to the point of having a playable prototype?// Demonstration The first part of the tutorial begins with a demonstration of each of the five steps necessary to Write a New Note in Facebook. I decided to have a demonstration on each of the steps first, to allow students to review each chunk of information at a time. I have two accounts, one that is on the beginning stages, and I have another that I use constantly for my classes. For the demonstration I made the choice of using the one I use often. This account has notes that I have shared with my students, plus, as I enter my site, there is plenty of activity on my Wall. This actually looks like a real page and I do not foresee them getting distracted by the images showing.

Assessment I created an assessment for each step required to write a note. The assessments were inserted into the demonstration at the appropriate time. I used my voice to give directions and to provide feedback. An image for a correct response will pop up and a different picture will appear for incorrect answers.

//How did you gather feedback from that?// Since my students already have requested my assistance for specific direction on writing notes, I have enough information to know what creates confusion in this section and particularly when completing my assignments. That is how I decided what steps to include in the tutorial. My family members who are adults, have never used Facebook, therefore, they will be testing out the module and will provide feedback of their experience.

//What lessons did you learn from this that you'll carry to your next game design project?//

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